Thu Oct 4, 2007 — by Elayne Riggs

Bungie cutting the cord?

Halo 3 co rumored jumping off from Microsoft

On the heels of the phenomenal success of Halo 3, the rumors are flying fast and furious in the gaming world that Bungie Studios is about to separate from Microsoft.

The buzz apparently started with a gamer on 8Bit Joystick, citing the old standby, "A friend of mine who has someone close to them that works at Bungie..." and claiming Microsoft would retain the Halo property and let Bungie once more produce independent projects, listing among the proofs a search of the company's global address book and Microsoft's controlling nature.  The rumor was then more or less contradicted at XYHD.TV, without the author getting around to flat-out denying it.  Now it's being spoken of on larger sites like Game Informer and CNet as if it may be a done deal, even though everyone's still quite careful to use the "r" word.

Tantalizing food for thought includes "For an unstated, but significant amount of money, Bungie shareholders bought the studio name back from Microsoft" and "Microsoft was supposed to release the press release today [10/1] but if they wait till 10/6 the impact won't affect the quarterly results."  So I guess we all need to stay tuned until Friday to see whether this rumor becomes fact!

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